Liberal MPs split on whether Adams will help or hurt party
It was once enemy territory. So what can former Conservative MP Eve Adams expect when she walks into the Liberal caucus room on Parliament Hill next week to meet her new colleagues for the first time?
Some Liberal MPs say they are happy to have Adams join their merry little group after making what must have been a courageous and difficult decision to leave the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Others, however, have quietly admitted to misgivings, wondering whether Liberal leader Justin Trudeau made a mistake in accepting a member of Parliament who has been plagued by controversy, and was reportedly rejected by her own party.
Trudeau appeared with Adams Monday to announce she was jumping to the Liberals after sitting nearly four years as a Conservative MP, including separate stints as parliamentary secretary to the Health and Veterans Affairs ministers.
Adams complained about the prime minister’s “mean-spirited” leadership and criticized the Conservatives’ income-splitting plan, while Trudeau described Adams as a “very strong local voice” and someone who had performed well in government.
A number of Liberal MPs, who only found out about Adams half an hour before the announcement, immediately took to Twitter to welcome her to their ranks, including Hedy Fry, Joyce Murray, John McCallum, Arnold Chan and Carolyn Bennett.
“It must have been a very difficult decision to leave after having been with the Conservative Party for so long,” Murray said in an interview.
“I give her the total benefit of the doubt that she reflected on the various positions and the approach of this prime minister, and decided she didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.”
But other Liberal MPs, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from Trudeau’s office or the party, said the downsides of accepting Adams would appear to outweigh the potential benefits.
They worry enlisting Adams hurts Trudeau’s message about Liberals standing for a new, more positive style of politics. Those concerns are partly based on Adams’ past, but also perceptions the floor-crossing was simply political opportunism by both sides.
“The larger population just got another message saying the Liberals are no different than the Conservatives,” said one Liberal MP. “And I think that’s detrimental. As one email put it to me, Trudeau has just made Harper look principled.”
Adams has been plagued by several small but embarrassing controversies since 2011. Those include an emotional blow-up at an Ottawa gas station over a car wash, and an attempt to claim hair salon treatments and visits to a nail spa as campaign expenses during the 2011 election.
She was also involved in a messy nomination battle in the new Toronto-area riding of Oakville North-Burlington, where she was hoping to run for the Tories in this year’s federal election. Adams currently represents Mississauga-Brampton South, but the new riding is considered safer.
Some have suggested Adams only turned to the Liberals after Conservative officials told her she would not be allowed to run for the Tories because of “misconduct” during that nomination race. Adams denies the charge of opportunism.
“I’m not sure she helps us,” said one Liberal MP. “Just because of all the baggage around her.”
Meanwhile, Trudeau’s team has been accused of being less interested in Adams and more interested in enlisting the help of her fiancé, Dimitri Soudas, who was a senior aide to Harper and a storehouse of information on Conservative party strategy.
But the Liberal MPs questioned what Soudas truly offers the party, and if he does have information to share about Conservative election tactics, whether he will divulge it until or unless Adams is confirmed as a Liberal candidate in the next election.
“We didn’t get Eve, we got Dimitri,” said a third Liberal MP. “And he knows where all the (Conservative) skeletons are buried. But do you think he’s going to deliver the skeletons until Eve is nominated?”
Adams has said she will run for the Liberal nomination in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, which is currently held by Finance Minister Joe Oliver.
But that has prompted anger from some Liberals such as Michael Colle, the provincial MPP Eglinton-Lawrence since 1995, who says Adams will win the nomination “over my dead body.”
The entire episode has disgusted other longtime Liberals. Former Liberal MP Michelle Simson, who is opposed to MPs switching parties, said that “there is no good floor-crossing, but if there were, this is one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“In this case, I don’t see how this move will attract anyone to the Liberal Party,” Simson said. “Justin has said he wanted to be the face of someone who did politics differently, and I’m just not seeing it.”